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The Mazda MX-5 Thread
- Thread starter FiestaST
- Start date
FiestaST
Honorary Master
FiestaST
Honorary Master
[video=youtube_share;pV-DmOooMoM]https://youtu.be/pV-DmOooMoM[/video]
Hi Mazda miata Guys, I have the first mazda na 1990 and i need to change my tappet cover gasket, Im wondering where i can source a tappet cover gasket for my miata 1990-1993 as the last time i had to source one from ebay. Apparently the 16oi etude as the same tappet cover gasket but i have phoned the likes of masterparts, midas and alert motors with no joy.
Thanks
Thanks
FiestaST
Honorary Master
The Mazda MX-5 Story - 4 Generations of Drop-Top - Auto Trader SA
[video=youtube_share;MtnQB9K7pMo]https://youtu.be/MtnQB9K7pMo[/video]
[video=youtube_share;MtnQB9K7pMo]https://youtu.be/MtnQB9K7pMo[/video]
FiestaST
Honorary Master
FiestaST
Honorary Master
This Is Not A Drill: Mazda Is Officially Restoring Original Miatas
Did you wake up feeling different this morning? Like your alarm buzzer’d been replaced by a chorus of singing angels? That wasn’t in your head, it was coming from Japan, where Mazda has announced it’s going to start officially restoring first-gen Miatas.
As announced on a Japanese Mazda blog this morning and confirmed by company spokesman Jacob Brown on Facebook, Mazda will begin taking orders for NA Miata restoration projects this year and start putting the cars together in 2018.
Mazda has set up a website dedicated to its new old-car revival efforts which, obvioulsy, I recommend you feast your eyes on. As the company explains:
“Manufacturer Mazda will meet directly with customers and will carry out services tailored to the status and needs of individual cars. Working at Mazda’s facility, we plan to acquire classic car garage certification from TÜV Rheinland Japan Co., Ltd. We will be able to deliver restored cars to our customers with high quality.” (Translated from Japanese)
Mazda states that 120,000 first-gen Miatas were sold in Japan over the course of the car’s run, and estimates that 23,000 are left “and loved like customers like their families.” I mean, yeah. We get it.
To help bring some luster back to those remaining cars, Mazda’s reprinting the incredible and perfect three-spoke Nardi wood steering wheel and matching shift knob. That, sans-airbag, was apparently factory optional equipment in Japan and some other countries that didn’t mandate airbags as aggressively as the United States.
The original soft top and tires are also being reproduced by the Mazda factory.
Error loading media: File could not be played
As to whether these parts or Mazda’s factory restoration service will be offered outside Japan, it appears that the answer is “not yet” but we’ve reached out to Mazda to find out more details.
But I’m pretty thrilled that Mazda has decided to recognize the awesomeness of an objectively archaic product. Now I’m curious to see who among us is enough of a Miata nut that they’ll actually pony up for a time machine back to the car’s glory days of the early 1990s?
http://jalopnik.com/this-is-not-a-drill-mazda-is-officially-restoring-orig-1797541485
Did you wake up feeling different this morning? Like your alarm buzzer’d been replaced by a chorus of singing angels? That wasn’t in your head, it was coming from Japan, where Mazda has announced it’s going to start officially restoring first-gen Miatas.
As announced on a Japanese Mazda blog this morning and confirmed by company spokesman Jacob Brown on Facebook, Mazda will begin taking orders for NA Miata restoration projects this year and start putting the cars together in 2018.
Mazda has set up a website dedicated to its new old-car revival efforts which, obvioulsy, I recommend you feast your eyes on. As the company explains:
“Manufacturer Mazda will meet directly with customers and will carry out services tailored to the status and needs of individual cars. Working at Mazda’s facility, we plan to acquire classic car garage certification from TÜV Rheinland Japan Co., Ltd. We will be able to deliver restored cars to our customers with high quality.” (Translated from Japanese)
Mazda states that 120,000 first-gen Miatas were sold in Japan over the course of the car’s run, and estimates that 23,000 are left “and loved like customers like their families.” I mean, yeah. We get it.
To help bring some luster back to those remaining cars, Mazda’s reprinting the incredible and perfect three-spoke Nardi wood steering wheel and matching shift knob. That, sans-airbag, was apparently factory optional equipment in Japan and some other countries that didn’t mandate airbags as aggressively as the United States.
The original soft top and tires are also being reproduced by the Mazda factory.
Error loading media: File could not be played
As to whether these parts or Mazda’s factory restoration service will be offered outside Japan, it appears that the answer is “not yet” but we’ve reached out to Mazda to find out more details.
But I’m pretty thrilled that Mazda has decided to recognize the awesomeness of an objectively archaic product. Now I’m curious to see who among us is enough of a Miata nut that they’ll actually pony up for a time machine back to the car’s glory days of the early 1990s?
http://jalopnik.com/this-is-not-a-drill-mazda-is-officially-restoring-orig-1797541485
satanboy
Psychonaut seven
That's....erm....horrible.
Rouxenator
Dank meme lord
Much better than any S2000 ever was. Love it!
genetic
Honorary Master
That's....erm....rich coming from a mini driver.
FiestaST
Honorary Master
2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata - Review and Road Test - Kelley Blue Book
[video=youtube;21IadrxVtlc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21IadrxVtlc[/video]
[video=youtube;21IadrxVtlc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21IadrxVtlc[/video]
genetic
Honorary Master
That's pricey for what it is, even with the low mileage.
Oh definitely too expensive. You can pick up an ND for R80000 more. It just looked too good for me not to post it
FiestaST
Honorary Master
FYI
FiestaST
Honorary Master
Here's How Mazda Designed The New Miata To Be Like The Original
We like to say that the Mazda Miata is always the answer, and there’s one big reason for that: it is kind of incredible how, in the Miata’s nearly 30 year history, the company never managed to screw it up.
When you think about other sporting cars one might consider—the Mustang, the GTI, the Camaro, the Nissan Z—it’s very clear that some generations stood far above others, that there are examples you simply don’t want. But all generations of the Miata have been generally excellent; all of them also deliver a remarkably similar driving experience.
Yet Mazda was determined to go back to something like the super small, super lightweight NA Miata when its designers crafted the current ND Miata that launched in 2016. That meant keeping the size and weight way down, no easy task with modern safety requirements.
Mazda pulled back the curtain on the entire design process of the ND Miata, and it’s worth a read in full. In four parts, the company details how teams from Japan, California and Europe came together as early as the summer of 2011 (which gives you an idea of how long this process takes) with 1/4-scale clay models showing their vision for the new car.
Here’s how that played out:
Program Manager Nobuhiro Yamamoto kicked off their efforts by setting targets for what would define the next-generation MX-5—a vehicle whose size and weight they knew would be more comparable to the first-generation’s than any that had come since, with the objective to “innovate in order to preserve.”
[...] The Mazda Design Americas full-size proposal used sharp, aggressive lines to push the purity and spirit of the roadster. Mazda Design Japan’s design expressed movement through changing surface volumes. Clay modeler Yukiharu Asano worked through Japan’s Golden Week holiday in May 2012 (when the office is ordinarily closed) with MX-5 Design Chief Masashi Nakayama to hone their proposal until Asano had an “ah ha!” moment. Breakthrough. They had found their design.
When the American design team arrived in Japan to share their final proposal, both teams sat down together to go over their designs. Nakayama felt the American proposal didn’t capture raw emotional excitement in a way that would captivate enthusiasts. The U.S. team felt there was still too much of the first-generation car tied up in the Japanese proposal. Progress needed to be made to get this small, yet crucial, vehicle perfect, as it would be the car that would anchor the entire Mazda brand. The fact that the U.S. is the MX-5’s largest market was further ground for keeping the dialogue alive and open between the two design centers.
You can see where this is challenging: the necessity of progress, but also the desire to keep it old school, and sticking to a concept that they knew would work. And it definitely seems like Japan was the driving effort here:
On October 3, 2012, all of the teams converged for their final proposals, with the Japanese theme leading the way with overall direction and the U.S. and European themes providing details to make the MX-5 stand out. Mazda designers shared the goal of making a car that looked and felt uniquely Japanese, yet it was globally relevant
And they looked back to the original for inspiration:
Going back to the earliest MX-5s, designers looked at why there were pop-up headlights: To keep the front end low, which made it look especially sleek in its diminutive stature. After time, as exposed headlights replaced the 1990-1997 pop-up units and evolved to meet safety and lighting legislation around the world, the MX-5’s front end became bulky.Again, it was time to go back to the beginning.Of course, pop-up headlights were no longer en vogue, and there was no chance they’d be coming back. But there needed to be some sort of tie to the rest of the Mazda family—simple and clean like the first-gen’s running lamps or almond-shaped like those of the rest of the Mazda family.In the end, the team used cues adapted from the European proposals, giving the MX-5 an expressive face that complemented both objectives.
We all know how it worked out. The new Miata’s a very sharp car, progressive and old school at the same time, and a blast to drive.
I wonder what this design team thinks about the Fiat 124 Spider; it started with their work and took it in a different direction, one I think looks better even if it doesn’t drive quite as well.
Anyway, Mazda’s series on the design of the car is worth a read, and the pictures are worth ogling. It’s a rare look at just what the car design process entails.
http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-mazda-designed-the-new-miata-to-be-like-the-o-1798348415
We like to say that the Mazda Miata is always the answer, and there’s one big reason for that: it is kind of incredible how, in the Miata’s nearly 30 year history, the company never managed to screw it up.
When you think about other sporting cars one might consider—the Mustang, the GTI, the Camaro, the Nissan Z—it’s very clear that some generations stood far above others, that there are examples you simply don’t want. But all generations of the Miata have been generally excellent; all of them also deliver a remarkably similar driving experience.
Yet Mazda was determined to go back to something like the super small, super lightweight NA Miata when its designers crafted the current ND Miata that launched in 2016. That meant keeping the size and weight way down, no easy task with modern safety requirements.
Mazda pulled back the curtain on the entire design process of the ND Miata, and it’s worth a read in full. In four parts, the company details how teams from Japan, California and Europe came together as early as the summer of 2011 (which gives you an idea of how long this process takes) with 1/4-scale clay models showing their vision for the new car.
Here’s how that played out:
Program Manager Nobuhiro Yamamoto kicked off their efforts by setting targets for what would define the next-generation MX-5—a vehicle whose size and weight they knew would be more comparable to the first-generation’s than any that had come since, with the objective to “innovate in order to preserve.”
[...] The Mazda Design Americas full-size proposal used sharp, aggressive lines to push the purity and spirit of the roadster. Mazda Design Japan’s design expressed movement through changing surface volumes. Clay modeler Yukiharu Asano worked through Japan’s Golden Week holiday in May 2012 (when the office is ordinarily closed) with MX-5 Design Chief Masashi Nakayama to hone their proposal until Asano had an “ah ha!” moment. Breakthrough. They had found their design.
When the American design team arrived in Japan to share their final proposal, both teams sat down together to go over their designs. Nakayama felt the American proposal didn’t capture raw emotional excitement in a way that would captivate enthusiasts. The U.S. team felt there was still too much of the first-generation car tied up in the Japanese proposal. Progress needed to be made to get this small, yet crucial, vehicle perfect, as it would be the car that would anchor the entire Mazda brand. The fact that the U.S. is the MX-5’s largest market was further ground for keeping the dialogue alive and open between the two design centers.
You can see where this is challenging: the necessity of progress, but also the desire to keep it old school, and sticking to a concept that they knew would work. And it definitely seems like Japan was the driving effort here:
On October 3, 2012, all of the teams converged for their final proposals, with the Japanese theme leading the way with overall direction and the U.S. and European themes providing details to make the MX-5 stand out. Mazda designers shared the goal of making a car that looked and felt uniquely Japanese, yet it was globally relevant
And they looked back to the original for inspiration:
Going back to the earliest MX-5s, designers looked at why there were pop-up headlights: To keep the front end low, which made it look especially sleek in its diminutive stature. After time, as exposed headlights replaced the 1990-1997 pop-up units and evolved to meet safety and lighting legislation around the world, the MX-5’s front end became bulky.Again, it was time to go back to the beginning.Of course, pop-up headlights were no longer en vogue, and there was no chance they’d be coming back. But there needed to be some sort of tie to the rest of the Mazda family—simple and clean like the first-gen’s running lamps or almond-shaped like those of the rest of the Mazda family.In the end, the team used cues adapted from the European proposals, giving the MX-5 an expressive face that complemented both objectives.
We all know how it worked out. The new Miata’s a very sharp car, progressive and old school at the same time, and a blast to drive.
I wonder what this design team thinks about the Fiat 124 Spider; it started with their work and took it in a different direction, one I think looks better even if it doesn’t drive quite as well.
Anyway, Mazda’s series on the design of the car is worth a read, and the pictures are worth ogling. It’s a rare look at just what the car design process entails.
http://jalopnik.com/heres-how-mazda-designed-the-new-miata-to-be-like-the-o-1798348415
Last edited:
FiestaST
Honorary Master
FiestaST
Honorary Master
All sports cars besides the 'Stang sells relatively-poorly in SA. They are all aspirational purchases. Slow sellers but they are very important to the brand(s) as a whole.